Dungeon Heart: Halls of Stone, page 10
There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the team. Ziggurd was of a different opinion, though he did not voice it. He had had plenty of time to contemplate their previous dungeon dive, and in his opinion, her estimate was a bit generous in his mind. The chance of all of them making it out alive would be maybe four-to-six, maybe. If the dungeon had a dungeon boss by the time they dived in next, which was completely possible considering the growth speed of the dungeon, then the chance of all of them making it out dropped even lower. Honestly, he was almost expecting a dungeon boss sometime in the near future, and he would not be surprised if the kobold lord was the monster to become the boss. Fighting that kobold lord and his minions after being exhausted from the maze would be a real challenge.
“If we prepared better,” Ella continued, “our chances might rise to a six-to-four chance of survival. Not the best odds in my opinion. Just a bit better than a coin toss really.”
“So,” Adder interjected, “you’re saying we shouldn’t enter the contest that the king set up? That would be an absolute waste, in my opinion. We have the best knowledge of the dungeon even if we are not the strongest adventurers here anymore!”
“Not quite,” Ella interrupted. “I am saying we shouldn’t dive in together by ourselves the same way we usually do.”
That caught the attention of everyone, their eyes focusing on Ella with curiosity as she gave them a wicked smirk.
“I am sure you all are aware that, even though we are one of the top ranked high C teams, we would be considered the weakest of the B teams at best, and even that might be generous. Even though most of the B ranks present are low B to mid B ranks, we won’t be able to compete with them directly in terms of strength. However, we have the opportunity to offer our services to some of these teams.”
“I see,” Adder spoke up, a wicked grin spreading across his mouth. “Boss lady, I think I am rubbing off on you. I see where you are going with this.”
“Mayhap...” Ella said elusively, still smirking. “Putting it bluntly, we can act as guides. I have already gotten a few lords and even a few teams that have requested our aid. There is a total of five requests for our help. Quite convenient that there are five of us, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Ella,” James said. “Spreading ourselves out like that... If anything happens and our employers retreat, we might be the ones left behind.”
“That thought did cross my mind.” Ella nodded, and her expression grew serious. “So, while I think we could make more money by each of us taking one of the requests, I say we take two of these requests, and split into two groups. Then we come back and divide the total sum of the profits. What do you think?”
There was a moment of considering and debating between the other four team members, but eventually, they came to agree with their boss. Though they might not really have a chance of winning the contest realistically speaking, they could make a profit out of it easily anyway.
“I don’t know, boss. Maybe it’s better if we stick together,” Adder pointed out hesitatingly. “Let’s hear the offers first, before we decide.”
“Oh?” Ella replied with surprise. “I didn’t expect that from you of all people.”
“Can’t spend money if you are dead,” Adder said with a shrug. “Besides, I got batted around the dungeon enough last time. I am not eager to be some noble’s scapegoat if things go sour.”
“Fair enough,” Ella replied. It was an understandable concern. Azure Arrow was a very tight-knit group, carefully balancing each other in a fight to make up for each other’s weaknesses. Dividing their team would have some serious drawbacks, drawbacks that could spell their end if things turned sour.
“Well, let’s read the offers first,” Ella said as she reached into her satchel and pulled out some envelopes. “The first offer comes from lord Lerron.”
As the world around him seemed to be buzzing in excitement, Smit had all but isolated himself from everyone, going as far as ordering his children to leave him in peace as he cultivated feverishly. The already short breaks he took from cultivating grew shorter and less frequent as the days slipped by like grains of sand in an hourglass. He had stowed away his new ability for now, voluntarily disregarding it in its entirety in order to focus on cultivating like a madman.
Every now and then he resurfaced from his deep meditative state, just enough for him to check on the developments of his creatures. Even these brief moments of observation were enough for Smit to feel reassured that his children were working hard to improve themselves. For instance, Pala certainly was moving more fluidly, his strikes becoming more ferocious thanks to the nonstop training he had put himself through. Echo moved more like an unstoppable force of nature. A dealer of death through sheer power. There was still little technique to speak of, but that would come with time.
Likewise, Arturus was making surprising leaps in his own development. He had managed to create a new technique that concentrated holy energy in his claws and fangs for a brief period of time. Though the effect was short lived, it boosted his physical capabilities enough that he could bite off an entire section of one of his brute golems’ arms. A most impressive feat considering that the arms of those golems were almost as wide in circumference as a human’s torso.
His children weren’t the only ones that had grown either. In his rush to attain another breakthrough, Smit hardly even noticed that his modified bears finally evolved into hind bears, granting them superior reach and strength. This was a dual gain for Smit, as it confirmed that if you modified a creature to have certain attributes, its chances of evolving into a creature that naturally had those attributes were greater than when the creature was not modified.
And it gave Smit hind bears.
Hind bears were creatures between monsters and animals, whose skeletal structure was rather unique, like a combination of that of a bear and a gorilla. As odd as the combination sounded, it was quite deadly as it provided their joints with a vastly improved range of movement and allowed them to stand on their hind legs more stably. This allowed them to attack and defend with their forearms far more efficiently, and their improved paws now had a thumb-like finger that enabled them to grab things more efficiently. And as if that was not enough, their hides were thicker.
Overall, the creature was considered more dangerous than your average grizzly bear, and Smit couldn’t be happier that they had naturally evolved from his modified bears.
As Smit’s experiments and cultivation continued, days slipped by in an odd mix of slowness and unbelievable speed, blurring together into an indistinguishable continuum of time. He could not tell if he had been cultivating for an hour, a day, or a minute. He was fully dedicated to pushing himself to the limit of his capabilities, pulling in more power than he had thought possible. For all intents and purposes, Smit was acting as a vacuum for the energies of the world, storing them within himself as quickly as he could. Had he been a creature of flesh and blood, he would have died from the sheer speed at which he was gathering all that energy.
<<<>>>
Congratulations! You have reached your third breakthrough!
Conditions met, general abilities improved. Species list updated. Five additional floors unlocked.
<<<>>>
Congratulations! Due to your new status, you may create an [Avatar] for yourself. Restrictions to the [Avatar] will apply.
<<<>>>
Smit perked up immediately as the notification came through, but he didn’t have much time to celebrate as his mind was flooded with even more notifications. The Voice of the World was clearly not done informing him about his situation. Even as a barrage of notifications pinged inside his head, somewhere, in the back of his mind, he could not help but wonder why the heavens had created such a persistent and annoying... thing to be the Voice of the World. While it was nice to know that he had achieved something, never in his previous life had he encountered this amount or frequency of messages from the Voice of the World.
<<<>>>
Warning! Restrictions lifted! Growth milestone [Rank 3] has been reached. As a high tiered dungeon of sufficient power, your ability [Equivalent Exchange] has had restrictions removed. According to the performance of invaders, they may now gain a small fraction of the power of creatures defeated.
<<<>>>
Assessing titles. Assessing achievements. Complete. Congratulations! Restriction lifted! As a high tiered dungeon with multiple titles and achievements, you have the right to [???].
<<<>>>
Warning, first [Avatar] body will form automatically. High tiered dungeon conditions accepted. High mental capacity detected. Cognitive motor conditions found. Commencing process now.
<<<>>>
Smit didn’t even have time to form a coherent thought in his own mind before the hard-earned energy he had been gathering so far began to leave him rapidly. He only had time to feel a wordless panic as he watched waves of mana leave his crystalline core. In moments, as thousands of points of mana gushed out of him, his core began to levitate, climbing higher into the air until he was floating high enough to look the average human in the eye.
The mana coiled and weaved around him, so thick and potent that a normal person would have felt its presence a hundred meters away even if they had not been staring at Smit directly. The first thing to form was the torso, which began to manifest itself around the dungeon heart. Thick stone dotted by raw minerals seemed to condense out of nothing, forming a perfect setting to hold the core out of the inorganic material. A ribcage was created around the cradle of stone that held his core, followed quickly by what could be interpreted as a spine.
Taut wire-like strands of minerals formed muscles and strong mana surged to fill the insides of the fibers, giving them unprecedented flexibility. Then the extremities formed, slowly giving rise to thick arms and stout legs. A mix of raw common ores melted and reformed, producing a grey type of stone that covered every inch of his body seamlessly, creating a smooth doll-like surface for an instant.
Just as the process seemed to be approaching completion, the second wave of anima and mana surged from his core, and the smooth stone surface fractured as the proportions of his inorganic muscles swelled appropriately into the form of a dwarf, and the last of the minerals became infused with high density mana, melting it before it spilled between the fractures. This pseudo molten metal filled the fractures and gave Smit the appearance of having veins of magma. Lastly, dull grey threads of a flexible alloy of silver and iron formed what seemed be his hair and beard.
The process was so intricate, so precise, that even Smit was entranced by it. As a master craftsman above all his peers, he understood better than anyone how delicate and perfectly accurate one had to be to create something to function as it was intended, and this body of his was of such quality that even he had to marvel at it. For Smit, the process of the creation of his avatar was something that he appreciated in its entirety, though it felt like it was over all too soon, as it was over within thirty minutes.
At the end of it all, the artificial body of a dwarven man had materialized. He was just a meter and twenty centimeters tall, but his body left no doubt that he was a grown man. The strong jawline and long beard saw to that, if his proud manhood itself was not enough of a dead giveaway. His arms were those of a man that had worked the forge for years.
And for the first time in a long time, Smit opened his eyes. Sharp grey eyes, seemingly made of molten metal, stared out into the world. Eyes that seemed almost organic in nature. Like the god of a mountain made flesh, Smit smiled and for the first time in forever, he let out a resounding, jovial laugh.
<<<>>>
Species: True Dungeon
Rank: 3
Name: Smit
Age: 4 months
Mana: 153,120
Anima: 539
Mana Reg.: 861 MP/h
Anima Reg.: 19.27 AP/day
Floors: 5 (of 10)
Inhabitants: 83 Species
Titles: Creator of Dungeon Laws; Creator; Guide of the Bloody Evolution; Legendary Craftsman; Master of Concentration; Reincarnated One
Abilities: Absorb matter; Alter environment; Bestow knowledge; Break down components; Craftsmanship; Creation; Digging; Destroy creation; Dungeon Laws; Enhancement; Equivalent Exchange; Ether manipulation; Evolution; Interdimensional Storage; Life bestowal; Life-energy harnessing; Mana absorption; Masterful mana manipulation; Modification of creations; Monster Link; Selective Speciation; Telepathy; Trap building; Transfer dungeon
Resistances: Magic (general); Mind control
<<<>>>
Chapter 9
Smit was euphoric once it began to sink in that he had truly acquired a body. He would have never guessed that he would obtain a body automatically by virtue of cultivating, much less a dwarf-like one. He had a few gripes about the body itself, of course, such as the fact that he felt that he was significantly heavier and yet weaker than when he was alive and in his prime, and the fact that this body felt, for lack of a better word, rusty. Like an old iron automaton that hadn’t been properly oiled in years.
Still, despite these few flaws, he couldn’t have been happier. He had a body with joints! Legs to walk, hands to grip a hammer, arms to hug, a beard on his face! He could do so much more, now. Heavens above, he could feel things. Perhaps... perhaps he also had a sense of taste and he could at long last have a taste of ale once again.
“COME, MY CHILDREN!” His voice boomed out, the tone deep and rough. Why it almost sounded as if it was his voice when he was only six hundred years old! Perhaps he was just imagining things, but his voice did sound a bit more... gritty, for lack of a better word.
Then again, what else could be expected from a body crafted from ores? It felt like talking after having to keep silent for years. His throat certainly felt stiff and uncomfortably dry, but that was a very small price to pay for having vocal cords again... or at least, a mechanism that acted like them. He wasn’t quite sure if he actually had proper vocal cords, but he wouldn’t complain if he didn’t. As a matter of fact he couldn’t be bothered to care at the moment about such a minor detail.
Hearing his own voice made the dwarf smile and he slapped his belly as he let out a merry laugh. The sensation of his hand against his belly felt dull for some reason and caused him to pause for a second to inspect his hand. Moving his fingers slowly, he tested them gently, before touching his fingers with his other hand experimentally. It was like touching something through thick leather gloves. He could feel it, but it felt distant. It sure wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge step up for him. A dulled sense of touch was still infinitely better than none at all.
Now, what shall I do? he thought to himself, a smile plastered on his face as he started to slowly walk around the room, his steps heavy and somewhat awkward. He felt clumsy in this body of his. I should probably test it. Find its limitations and strengths. No doubt that it is significantly different from a body of bone, flesh, and blood.
As these thoughts flowed through his mind, a thousand and one others followed. Did he require food or was his body sustained exclusively by the power of his dungeon? Would his sense of touch improve? Could he cultivate this body too? What about his sense of balance? To what extent could he use this body like his previous one?
Looking down to the ground as he thought silently, he blinked as he realized that he was still in the nude. Clearly whatever process he had undergone was strictly limited to creating a body and excluded any extra accessories. Thinking about it, he supposed this made sense to him. Though dungeon avatars were rare at best, they often were monsters, or constructs that lacked a gender, which was logical considering that Echo used to be androgenous. More likely than not, dungeons probably had no gender in general, so what need did they have to cover themselves up? No, perhaps at an even more basic level, they didn’t live in communities with other dungeons, and they did not feel cold or heat as other living creatures did, so what use would they have for clothes?
Realizing this, it made complete sense that there were no clothes created along with his avatar. Putting that aside, he was slightly concerned about his form. He had never heard of a dungeon with an avatar that was made in the form of one of the sentient species. As far as he was aware, avatars of dungeons were only found in the rarest dungeons, and most of these avatars were the very incarnations of defense, a final bastion that defended the core from harm.
In most of these stories, the dungeon avatar would be something like a giant snake made of stone, or a slow, tusked creature with metal plates, or perhaps even a giant slime that could easily absorb impacts. Honestly, those avatars did sound extremely useful, especially considering his current situation, where hundreds of people were preparing to dive into his dungeon. Still, he wasn’t going to complain. He would take any advantage he could get, and he much preferred his current form to that of a giant slime anyway.
Where are those kids? Smit wondered to himself as he used his senses to find them. Expanding his consciousness to search for them, Smit was pleasantly surprised to find that having an avatar had not diminished in any way his ability to sense and observe his dungeon. It took him mere seconds to find them, and sure enough, they were rushing towards his location, speeding through the rooms and halls of his dungeon at breakneck speeds. They just had happened to be fairly far from him, doing their training duties like good children.
Hmm... Enough time to at least create something to cover my modesty. Smit chuckled as he calculated that despite their speed, they would need a few minutes to reach him. Not that they would care even if he didn’t, considering the dungeon didn’t exactly have a culture of wearing garments, but he would not be comfortable presenting himself without clothing.
